


Last of the Light

by iwantcandy2



Series: Rarepair Requests [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Humanstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 04:18:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3596085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwantcandy2/pseuds/iwantcandy2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aradia and Jake explore some ancient ruins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last of the Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Crazy4U](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crazy4U/gifts).



> for the prompt: Aradia and Jake are part of an archaeological team, and have spent many years working together. They go a new site, and Jake plans on proposing to her after they make camp. While the team is exploring the new site, possibly an underground temple, there is a cave in, and the two get separated. Will they be able to get out? Will they tell each other their feelings? It's up to you.
> 
> This isn't exactly what you asked for, but hopefully it is close enough.

“I promise you will have fun,” Aradia said, batting her eyelashes like a pair of twitterpated butterflies. “This could be the archeological find of the century.”

“It just…well, it looks right out hokey, if you ask this gent,” Jake replied, looking down at the bright green and yellow flyer. “Wouldn’t you rather go to some place more established? One where we know we aren’t going to get horn-swaggled and left naked and bleating alone in the jungle like a right pair of shaven alpacas?”

Spring break: one precious week in Peru, just the two of them. A trip planned and saved for by two archeology students as dirt-poor as the grit clinging to their picks. For weeks Jake had been dreaming of Machu Picchu, the cloud forests of Kuelap, the ruin-rich outskirts of Trujillo. Sacrificing a single day of that to do to some-

“There’s skulls there,” Aradia said, winking.

“Really now?”

“Mm-hmm. Apparently, some sort of bipedal reptile skeletons lived in the ruins. Scientists think it could be some unprecedented evolutionary offshoot of dinosaurs.”

“And here we go back to this hoaxy-pokesie stuff,” Jake sighed.

“Oh, come on, Jakey,” she crooned, taking his hand. “What would you rather do? Go to some overcrowded tourist trap and tread the same stones like half a zillion other people have tread on, or go somewhere just recently discovered? Where is the real adventure at?”

“Well balderdash, luv, you’ve got me by the short hairs there.”

Aradia giggled, a sound like the surprised chortling of a rubber duck.

“You’ll have fun,” she said, squeezing his hand. “I promise.”  
***  
Four hours and three bus lines later, Jake was not having fun. Half the day was gone, and he had yet to set foot in a single ruin. Instead, he was experiencing first hand the public transportation of Peru. It wasn’t much different from public transportation in any other bloody country he had been to. 

After the bus, it was the taxi cab. Cramped, dingy, expensive. Jake would much rather have ridden on the back of a lice-infested llama. At least riding through the jungle on a llama is something he could envision a suave action star doing. Instead, he suffered a bout of car sickness and ended up spending most of the trip with his head between his knees, trying not to pay attention to the densely-packed trees as they whizzed by. 

Finally, they got out of the ruddy car.

“It’s only a few miles from here,” Aradia reassured him. 

“Miles?” Jake squeaked.

“Race ya!”

And just like that she was dashing ahead, hair swinging behind her in a cascade. She was laughing, tromping through the jungle with a smile on her face, like this sweaty forest was where she wanted to be, that she’d stumbled upon Eden amidst the flies and frogs and she couldn’t be happier.

With Aradia, that was usually true. She always was happy, no matter where she was or who she was with.

Trying not to be a complete and utter wet blanket, Jake swallowed his bucket of gripes and trudged after her. 

The ruins were not impressive at first sight. Turns out the reason they had been lost for some half dozen centuries and why they had been un-lost was because they had sunk into a swamp that had recently been drained. And they looked like something that had been marinated in swamp-slime for that long. They were the dull, unassuming color between green and brown. The surface had the slightly slick look of mud. Even through the wear, Jake could make out the distinctive bulge of…a frog head?... on top of one spire.

“So these people worshipped frogs, eh?” Jake asked.

“Who knows? Maybe this was some sort of ancient penitentiary, and the frogs were supposed to be frightening,” Aradia speculated, winking at him. Then she was off, giggling like a schoolgirl on Friday.

Loping after her, Jake followed her down towards the entrance.

“Is there a tour or something?” he called, ducking after her into the first building. “This place seems awfully empty.”

“Mm, I don’t know. But if no one’s going to stop us, let’s go exploring.”

“Well, I’m not going to say no to a little down and dirty,” Jake retorted, whipping out his flashlight. “It’s about time we did some honest to goodness adventuring.”

“I call dibs on any relics.”

“Not if they’re shaped like skulls you don’t!”

Alas, the rumored relics were nowhere to be found. Instead, there were murals and pictographs on every wall. Most were covered in a microcosm of fungus, but the legible stuff all showed frogs and stars and a bunch of swirly symbols. The pair found some stairs leading down into a basement half-submerged in muck. Like the demure lady she had never been, Aradia wasted no time wading into it. Jake bid a fond farewell to his beloved shorts and waded after her.

“You don’t suppose there are leeches in this, do you?” he asked.

“Aw, don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little bit of bloodsucking,” Aradia teased, not even looking over her shoulder.

She was staring intently at a mural, her flashlight teasing out the glyphs in a slow spiral of light. Jake waded up next to her, following her gaze. 

“What do you suppose it’s like,” Aradia asked, “to be a god people have stopped believing in?”

Jake mused for a bit, trying to think of a satisfying answer. 

“Well, I’ve never been a deity myself, but I should think an all-powerful bloke wouldn’t care a whit or whistle what other people think about them.”

Aradia hummed under her breath, not turning to look his way. 

After a thoughtful pause, she mused, “I think it would be lonely.”

Concerned, Jake studied Aradia’s face. It wasn’t completely unheard of for her to wander off to the dark corners of her mind when contemplating about death. 

Slowly, he reached out and laced his fingers with hers. She flinched in surprise, then smiled and returned his grip with renewed strength. 

“Sorry to be such a downer. I just…” she turned to look at the strange spirograph etched on the wall. “I read about this place, about how they were shutting down the funding for studying it. I…I think it’s a shame. To let something like this rot here, forgotten.”

“Oh. I’m sorry I was such a pooper about coming out here, then,” Jake apologized.

“You came in the end. That’s all that matters,” she said, leaning her head against his shoulder. “I’m so glad I could see this place, even if it’s for one day.”

They stood there in the damp basement smelling of bog, staring at a moldy scribble on a crumbling wall. However, with Aradia’s hand in his and her warmth against his side, Jake was happy.

“You know,” he started, “we still have six days left. There’s no reason we couldn’t spend more time here.”

“Are you sure?” Aradia asked. “I know how much you wanted to see Machu Picchu.”

“Nuts to Machu Picchu and all its smelly llamas,” Jake scoffed. “As long as you’re happy, so am I. Besides, I think we could make good use of the privacy…”

“You’re right!” Aradia exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “Think of all the pictures we could get with no tourists in the way! Ooh, and maybe we could take some rubbings of the carvings and take them back to a hieroglyphics professor at university. I’ll go get the paper!”

“Not…what I meant.”

But it was too late. Araida was already off in a whirl of activity. Jake shrugged and waded after her. There was no rush. They had a whole week, after all.


End file.
